The Imo State Governor, Rochas Okorocha, on Thursday said that the fortune of the ruling All Progressives Congress has reduced drastically since the inception of the National Chairman, Adams Oshiomhole. He claimed that the party had lost about five million voters due to Oshiomhole’s highhandedness.
Okorocha, who is also the Chairman of the Progressives Governors Forum, made the remarks in an interview with State House correspondents shortly after a meeting he had with President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja. “This issue of treating court orders as tissue papers must stop. It doesn’t reflect the image of our party. Oshiomhole must act quickly to fix the integrity of this party because his coming in ought to have brought joy into the party and not sadness,” Okorocha said. He added, “APC will not disintegrate for as long as the person, Muhammadu Buhari is still the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, and remains the leader of this party. We cannot give that credit to the chairman. He cannot disintegrate this party, the party is still intact, just that many people are hurt. Since his inception and after these primaries, we are losing almost five million voters because of anger, protest everywhere and he needs to be called to order. He has to respect the rule of law, respect court orders and do the right thing – obey court orders where applicable and not turn himself into INEC.”
Okorocha said it was not possible for the party to replace his son-in-law, Uche Nwosu, with Senator Hope Uzodinma as the party’s governorship candidate in the state. “He cannot be standing on Hope Uzodinma because that man did not win election. You cannot compare somebody who won 265,000 votes with somebody who won 7,000 votes. He (Hope Uzodinma) never won election and you cannot impose a candidate who is unacceptable to the people on the people. That is how serious the matter is now. So, he (Oshiomhole) should do the right thing and I have advised him many times to do the right thing before he creates more disaffections in our party,” he said.
Photo Credit: Getty
